The College of Music occupies five buildings on the north-east corner of campus. The Housewright Music Building, the Kuersteiner Music Building, and the Longmire Building house faculty offices, classrooms, and recital halls. The Warren D. Allen Music Library and a state-of-the-art recording studio are also in the Housewright Music Building, while the Music Technology Resource Center can be found in the Kuersteiner Music Building.

Many undergraduate music majors choose to live together in the Music Living-Learning Center at Cawthon Hall. This residence hall, just a two-minute walk from the College of Music, houses up to 150 music students who attend class there. The Music Living-Learning Center has a group piano studio and music technology resource center, plus classrooms and rehearsal and practice spaces.

The College of Music's history dates back to 1900, when music instruction began with only one teacher of vocal and instrumental music. By 1911, the teaching staff had grown to six faculty members. That same year, Ella Scoble Opperman, for whom Opperman Music Hall is named, became the director of the school, and the first bachelor of music was awarded by vote of the faculty. By 1920, Professor Opperman had become the dean of the School and served in that capacity until her retirement in 1944. The College of Music proudly celebrated its centennial during the 2010-2011 school-year with the re-opening of the completely renovated Ruby Diamond Concert Hall.

Reservations and Contacts

Performance Halls

Ruby Diamond Concert Hall

Opperman Music Hall

Longmire Recital Hall

Dohnányi Recital Hall

Lindsay Recital Hall

Owen Sellers Amphitheatre

Classrooms

Smart Classrooms

Music Technology Resource Center

Living-Learning Community

Instrument Library

Rehearsal Spaces

Recording Studios

Music Library

The Warren D. Allen Music Library is one of the major music libraries of the southeastern United States. Housed in 18,000 square feet of space with comfortable furnishing, listening and viewing stations, and technology-enhanced seminar room, the Music Library provides students with impressive resources and surroundings.

Print Items: 192,913 volumes, including 79,000 scores.

Audio and Video Items: 6,428 volumes

Online music subscriptions and databases, including:

Naxos Music and Jazz Libraries (125,000 albums)

Alexander Street Press Music Online (794,000 albums)

Alexander Street Press Classical Scores Online (50,000 scores)

Oxford Music Online / Grove Music Online

RILM Abstracts and Music Index online, and JSTOR

To use these resources and many more visit us at the Music Library website.

Reservation and Contacts

Our halls support the academic mission of the College as premier acoustic music performance venues and play a crucial academic role in the education of Florida State University College of Music students. Scheduling priority for each hall is given first to acoustic musical events involving College of Music faculty and / or students as performing artists. Secondary priority is reserved for other University-sponsored acoustic musical events, followed by other non-music programming sponsored by units within Florida State University.

In addition, the College of Music’s performance halls may be scheduled for other outside events at the discretion of the College. Such scheduling will be dependent on the availability of space, personnel, and other institutional resources. Priority will be given to those events that have the greatest potential benefit to College of Music students and faculty, the University as a whole, the State of Florida, and the broader Tallahassee community.

For inquiries for Ruby Diamond Concert Hall and Opperman Music Hall contact us 850-644-5541.

For inquires about all other recital halls contact us at 850-644-2705.

Rehearsal Spaces and classrooms are available by reservation to College of Music students, faculty and staff. To reserve a classroom or rehearsal space or to report a building maintenance issue please contact Tiawana Meeks at 850-644-4649.

Opperman Music Hall

Opperman Music Hall is a 437 seat concert hall located in the Kuersteiner building and is named for Ella Scoble Opperman, who served as the first dean of music from 1911 to 1944. The hall can accommodate concerts ranging from solo recitals to chamber orchestra and band concerts, as well as opera. The 1975, 34-stop Holtkamp Tracker Organ seen on the stage is used for recitals, concerts, and lessons. Other organs are available in the school to students for practice and performance.

Longmire Recital Hall

The historic Longmire building was constructed in 1938 and named in honor of Rowena Longmire, founder of the FSCW Alumni Association. Renovated in 1969, the building retains its architectural interest and integrity. Originally constructed for use by the Alumni Association, Longmire has, through the years, housed a wide variety of specialized areas from guest quarters and a soda shop to the music and law libraries. The lobby and first floor offices still retain their original oak paneling, and the Beth Moor and Alumni lounges have hand-painted plaster ceilings and Gothic décor. One of two group piano classroom/laboratories (the other is in the Music Living-Learning Center at Cawthon Hall) is located on the fourth floor. In 2008 the College of Music partnered with the Office of the Provost and the Office of Instructional Technology to renovate an old lecture hall on the 2nd floor. The newly renovated Longmire Recital Hall seats 140 and presents a perfect venue for piano, vocal, string and chamber music recitals.

Dohnányi Recital Hall

Dohnányi Recital Hall, located in the Housewright building, is a 215 seat facility used mainly for recitals and lectures. Ernst Von Dohnányi, for whom this recital hall is named, was a composer-in-residence at FSU from 1949 until his death in 1960. A world-renowned composer and pianist, he was director of the Budapest Music Academy, and held other important posts in his native Hungary until the outbreak of World War II. Many of his works are still performed throughout the world today.

Lindsay Recital Hall

Lindsay Recital Hall, located in the Kuersteiner building, is named for Joe Lindsay, a retired businessman from Carabelle, Florida. His initial interest in music began as an adult when he started taking viola lessons with a member of the faculty. His support included many generous financial contributions to the College of Music, including a four-year scholarship awarded to an undergraduate string player. A choral rehearsal hall before it was renovated and named in 1989, Lindsay Hall is now used as a 100-seat lecture/recital space.

Owen Sellers Amphitheatre

The Owen F. Sellers Music Amphitheater is a unique outdoor performance space used primarily in the fall and spring. Among many accomplishments, Owen Sellers served as the assistant dean of the College of Music from 1931 until 1973, and organized and directed the first band. The amphitheatre is situated at the north end of Mina Jo Powell Green, and is surrounded on three sides by the Kuersteiner Music Building and the Longmire Building, which creates a very effective acoustic music space.

Smart Classrooms

Spread across the Kuersteiner and Housewright Music Buildings are a total of sixteen technology enhanced classrooms. Each of these rooms contain a projector or smartboard, computer, document camera, Blu-ray player, speakers, and inputs for various laptops, tablets and phones. The rooms utilize Extron touch-panel control systems to provide a graphical, easy to use experience for the end-user and to provide a mechanism to request help when needed. The rooms are a critical component of our educational experience and are designed to be broadly accessible to the diverse pedagogical needs of our faculty. Music offers a number of specific IT challenges in this way. First, there is a reliance on physical assets, such as books and musical scores which are coupled with the need for audio playback from a variety of sources. Viewing a score on the document camera while listening to a score from a portable device, classroom computer, or Blu-ray player is a common occurrence. Furthermore, specific programs such as Music Education also prepare our students by utilizing relevant apps on iPads as well as familiarizing this with the classroom use of smartboards. Therefore the primary Music Education classroom in KMU 340 mirror setups found in some of the local primary and secondary schools in the region where practicums occur.

In addition to the classrooms, our recital halls also have similar setups with projectors, computers and document cameras, but are designed with the larger lecture classes and recitals that accompany these spaces. Furthermore these spaces have audio recording setups to record recitals as well as multi-camera pan/tilt video recording setups for our two premier halls, RDCH and OMH. Most concerts are recorded and archived in the Warren D. Allen Music Library.

Music Technology Resource Center

The Music Technology Resource Center is a teaching facility and computer/music technology lab available to faculty, staff, and students. The MTRC maintains 13 Apple iMacs and 16 Dell touchscreen computers, with MIDI keyboards at each station. Available software includes various DAW’s (ProTools, Cubase, Logic, Ableton), MS Office, notation software (Finale and Sibelius), Pyware Marching Band software, Adobe Creative Cloud, and other productivity tools. Similar to our smart classrooms, the MTRC also includes a presentation computer, HD projector, and studio quality speakers for playback. In addition to providing a common facility for students to work on papers, music notation, graphic design, audio editing, the MTRC also hosts our music technology related classes, and is available to faculty and staff upon request for presentations and technology related training classes.

Cawthon Living Learning Center

Cawthon Living Learning Center

Instrument Library

The Instrument Library and Equipment Storage Office (IL)

We house just over 600 instruments and accessories, accommodating the needs of ensembles and individual student lessons with daily check-out and long-term loan. In addition to standard orchestral and band instruments, we lend items such as early music instruments, mandolins, an original Fender Rhodes piano, banjos, and accordions to support the diverse ensembles in the College of Music. IL also maintains instrument lockers for student use and assists in overseeing operations of the adjacent rehearsal spaces.